%20(1).jpg)
1985 · U.K.
Album sample · Never issued.
At Last!A New Collection Of Previously Unreleased Material
%20(2).jpg)
%20(3).jpg)
%20(4).jpg)
Disc side 2.
Liner notes:
SIDE ONE
1 Come and Get It (McCartney) 2:26
2 Leave My Kitten Alone (Turner/McDougall) 2:54
3 Not Guilty (Harrison) 3:17
4 I'm Looking Through You (Lennon/McCartney) 2:52
5 What’s the New Mary Jane? (Lennon/McCartney) 5:59
1, 4, 5 Northern Songs— 2. MCA Music Ltd.—3. Ganga B.V.
SIDE TWO
1 How Do You Do It? (Murray) 1:55
2 Besame Mucho (Velasquez/Skylar) 2:33
3 One After 909 (Lennon/McCartney) 2:53
4 If You’ve Got Troubles (Lennon/McCartney) 2:21
5 That Means a Lot (Lennon/McCartney) 2:25
6 While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Harrison) 3:21
7 Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues (Roberts/Katz/Clayton) 1:50
8 Christmas Time (Is Here Again) (Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starkey) 1:08
1. Dick James Music Ltd.—2, 7 Southern Music—3, 4, 5, 8 Northern Songs—6. Harrisongs Ltd.
Recording Produced by GEORGE MARTIN and remixed by GEOFF EMERICK.
Compilation and Picture Research by BRIAN SOUTHALL and MIKE HEATLY.
Photographs by PETER KAYE, DEZO HOFFMANN, LESLIE BRYCE, DAVID NUTTER, DON McCULLIN and ETHAN RUSSELL.
Copyright © 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969,
1985 by Kaye Photography Ltd., Rex Features Ltd., Beat Publications Ltd. and Apple Publishing Ltd.
Used by permission.
This album is dedicated to the memory of JOHN BARRETT, without whose painstaking research this project would have been unthinkable.
This is the Beatles album that millions of fans have been waiting for. It is an entirely new collection of previously unreleased originals and some alternate versions of familiar tunes. Running from the.Parlophone audition in June, 1962 to a McCartney demo recorded on the eve of the group's demise, it shows The Beatles’ musical development from a perspective even veteran collectors are not used to.
Over the years, much has been written about the possible number of unreleased Beatles tracks supposedly remaining in ‘’EMI’s vaults.’’ The truth of the matter is that there is only a handful. As studio technology got more and more intricate during the 1960s, so did the Beatles’ creativity and inventiveness. More and more the boys would begin a recording session with only the vaguest outline of a song, which would then be tested in a varying number of formats and styles during the actual recording process. The possibillity of adding any number of ‘‘layers”’ to a tune was used in full by The Beatles, who composed, so to speak, ‘‘paintings’’ in sound like a master painter using a palette of infinite richness.
The unreleased Beatles material which still exists today, aside from false starts, snippets of songs and some ‘‘warmup”’ jamming, consists mainly of separate music tracks that were not used in the released version of a song. In addition, many alternate takes of released songs survive, but to suggest that they are better or more interesting than the released version would be to question The Beatles’ own artistic judgment. After all, The Beatles were at the very top of their field precisely because they only allowed their best material to come out. As a result, most unreleased recording are left unreleased for very good reasons.
There remains, therefore, only a very limited number of tracks of which after all these years a release could be considered. These contain songs that were “left over’’ from their many sets of recordings — the main reason being that the space available on an LP simply made it impossible for the boys to release everything that was set down on tape. When the time came for the next album or single, there was an abundance of new material to be recorded; and besides, the group’s sound and approach had changed, so a number left over from, say, the ‘‘Revolver’’ sessions was unlikely to be included on the ‘‘Sgt. Pepper’’ album.
Here is a detailed listing of all the tracks on this album in the order in which they were originally recorded. Besame Mucho, sung by Paul, comes from the Beatles’ very first recording session with Parlophone on Wednesday 6 June 1962 (with Pete Best still a member of the group). How Do You Do It? was recorded on Monday 26 November 1962, the same sesión which also produced Please, Please Me; One After 909 (in a version predating the released one by six years) was left over from the Tuesday 5 March 1963 sessions which also produced From Me to You. Leave My Kitten Alone comes from the ‘‘Beatles for Sale’’ sessions and was recorded on Wednesday 5 August 1964. That Means a Lot was recorded during the ‘‘Help!’’ LP sessions, in the spring of 1965, serving as a demo for P.J. Proby’s version released.that September. The ‘Rubber Soul’’ sessions yielded take 1 of /’m Looking Through You (lacking the middle section of the song which had not yet been written at the time) and /f You've Got Troubles, written by Paul and sung by Ringo. Christmas Time was the theme song of the Beatles’ fifth Xmas record, taped on Tuesday 28 November 1967 and originally published by The Official Beatles Fan club. The following three songs were recorded during the sessions for the 1968 double album ‘‘The Beatles’’: While My Guitar Gently Weeps on Thursday 25 July (with solo acoustic guitar and with a verse not included in the finished version); Not Guilty on Wednesday 7 August (a slightly more. ‘‘psychedelic’’ version than the one released.on the 1979 ‘George Harrison’ album), and What’s the New Mary Jane on Wednesday 14 August. The January 1969 sessions for the ‘‘Get Back’’ album project (eventually resulting in the ‘‘Let It Be’ film and LP) contain a Lennon cover version of Buddy Holly’s 1957 success, Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues. Come and Get /t was written by Paul McCartney as the theme song for the Peter Sellers movie ‘‘The Magic Christian’ (also starring Ringo Starr); his demo record sounds even more fabulous than the version sung by Badfinger as released on 5 December 1969.
The Beatles themselves were actively involved in getting this new collection off the ground. In the summer of 1983, EMI’s Abbey Road studios staged.a unique video spectacular containing some of the alternate takes and unreleased tracks mentioned before. On one particular night, after Paul McCartney had finished work in EMI’s new penthouse studio, he quietly slipped into the audience after the lights had gone down, and watched most of the show, making sure to disappear in time before the end. He apparently enjoyed listening to the Beatles’ classic material, and alerted George and Ringo, who were treated to a private viewing. After George had listened to himself recording the first take of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, he immediately asked EMI to release the track as soon as possible!
Here, then, is the long-awaited new Beatles album. More than any previous record it provides us with a historical view of The Beatles at work at the Abbey Road studios. But even more to the point, it is a tribute to the lasting talents of the true masters of pop.
BRIAN SOUTHALL
ReplyDeleteSessions is a cancelled compilation album of previously unreleased tracks by English rock band the Beatles, planned for release by EMI in 1985 but never issued officially, due to objections by the surviving Beatles.
There were two proposed artworks for the cover, including one colour collage cover and one with a black and white photo of the group in an alley outside of Abbey Road Studios.
The album consists of 13 finished but unreleased Beatles songs. A planned single containing two of the tracks from Sessions – "Leave My Kitten Alone", backed with an alternative version of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" – was also left unissued. The idea was resurrected in 1995 as the greatly expanded three-volume double CDs The Beatles Anthology with an accompanying six-hour documentary.
The original release date of Sessions was to be November 1984, but EMI did not want to clash with Paul McCartney's Give My Regards to Broad Street soundtrack scheduled for release in late October, so the compilation was shelved.
According to reports, McCartney later objected to the release of Sessions in its then current form, while George Harrison, joined by John Lennon's estate, objected to the album entirely.